HGLBT Political Caucus issues resolution in favor of immigration reform

The membership of the Houston GLBT Political Caucus voted overwhelmingly Wednesday for a resolution (attached) making a strong statement in favor of comprehensive immigration reform.

“We, as a civil rights movement, see the immigration reform movement in the same light,” said Kris Banks, Caucus president. “We both have a long way to go. We both have seen our communities demonized by politicians stoking fear for political gain, as we saw with the recent draconian Arizona law. And we both face laws that simply do not work.”

Currently, more than 12 million people living in the United States are in a state of limbo, unable to reach citizenship or legal residency status. The laws regulating immigration are broken, outdated and fail to address reality: Mexico is allotted the same number of visas as Iceland, making for untenable waiting lists. Families are separated as the immigrant parents of U.S. citizens wait outside the United States for visa.

“The GLBT community has also faced, and still faces, laws that simply do not work. Laws like the sodomy statute and ‘cross-dressing’ laws, and laws still in place like marriage bans. They don’t work because they don’t recognize the innate drive of human beings to seek to live to their full potential, to constantly seek their own pursuit of happiness,” Banks said. “We are proud to stand with the immigration reform movement as they seek justice and fairness.”

The GLBT community is also directly affected by immigration issues. Currently, citizens and legal permanent residents are unable to sponsor their same-sex partners or that partner’s children. The Reid-Schumer-Menendez “framework” proposed in the U.S. Senate includes language from the Uniting American Families Act which fixes that problem, uniting families.

However, the Senate framework also includes language that would create a national ID card that uses biometrics, which would make getting documents correctly identifies the gender of transgender people difficult. The Caucus opposes such a measure.

The Caucus is the South’s oldest organization for the civil rights of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community. For more information, see www.thecaucus.org.

Nicely put. I’d like to see more clubs and organizations issue take the same action. Then maybe we could do more than just begin the work of getting comprehensive immigration reform done. For those of you who are in a club or organization and would like to emulate the HGLBTPC’s example, the resolution with all its “Whereas”es is here.